Metro Matters; The Big Dimout To Save Millions: Will It Really?

By SAM ROBERTS

Published: February 25, 1991

How many light bulbs does it take to change a city?

Many New Yorkers may not have noticed yet. But, block by block, the city is getting darker at night.

The dimming of New York, in this case, is deliberate. The ostensible goal of the city government's "wattage reduction program" for 60,000 street lights is to save millions of dollars in energy and maintenance costs, thereby avoiding cuts in more vital municipal services. Along with companion economies, the hope is to save about $2 million in the fiscal year ending June 30 alone.

Whatever the ramifications, though, city officials have invoked Orwellian logic to justify the changes. They've stopped just short of suggesting that one bonus of the switch is that dirtier streets will be harder to see in the dark.

Reducing the wattage of street lights, said Michael Primeggia, the deputy transportation commissioner, will "result in less glare and a more even illumination on the pavement."

Failing to repair broken lights for six months, Mayor David N. Dinkins's budget proclaimed in January, will result in "greater operational efficiencies."

The light brigade has already converted 15,400 lamps since 1985 and, to the untrained eye, the difference may be barely noticeable. Moreover the newer lights meet national engineering standards; their reduced intensity is supposed to improve visibility in shadows. Few critics have actually compared the bulbs side by side, but they take a dim view of the reductions.

City Councilwoman C. Virginia Fields said her Harlem constituents complain increasingly that street lights have become dimmer.

Councilwoman Ronnie Eldridge of the West Side, said brighter lights reflect off buildings already dimmed by the protective gates that shutter many store windows. She questioned how City Hall could reconcile the dimming and non-repair plans with the Mayor's "Safe Streets, Safe City" anti-crime proposal.

Community Board 5 in midtown Manhattan voted earlier this month to oppose the wattage reduction program. Community Board 6, on the East Side, is investigating its impact.

Borough President Ruth W. Messinger of Manhattan said reducing wattage failed to consider the consequences for crime: Would additional police patrols and other law-enforcement expenses cost more than dimmer streets would save?

In Manhattan the latest lower-wattage lights are to be installed in largely noncommercial areas, including all of Riverside Drive and on Lexington and Madison Avenues above 60th Street. All or part of dozens of other streets in every borough, including Queens Boulevard in Queens, Fordham Road in the Bronx, and Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn will be affected.

No changes are anticipated near schools, hospitals and houses of worship or in Times Square, where, because street lights are closer together, concerns about glare do not apply.

The city expanded its conversion from mercury to high-pressure sodium lights in the early 1970's. "No other single step which we can take," Mayor John V. Lindsay declared then, "will give the public as great a sense of security in the street."

But bright didn't necessarily make right. Officials found that the sodium lights accelerated growth of foliage -- thereby blocking out light. And some people cursed the brightness. A lighting designer, Howard Brandston, complained recently that pedestrians were "being homogenized in yellow light smog" by monochromatic sodium lamps. (The city says one alternative, metal halide, is too expensive).

A 250-watt mercury lamp produced 12,000 lumens; a 400-watt one produced 20,000. The output of 250-watt sodium lamps is 30,000 lumens, which, Mr. Primeggia wrote Ms. Messinger, "is 50 percent higher than the 400-watt mercury lamp." He neglected to complete the equation: the existing 400-watt sodium lamps produce 50,000 lumens.

Reducing wattage is supposed to save $724,000 a year for every 10,000 lamps used. Converting 10,000 lamps costs $1.3 million.

New York City has 325,000 street lights. On any given night, about 8,000 don't work. Maintenance is to be deferred, which means 5,000 more broken lights will not be fixed immediately, to save $1.4 million. Nor will any lights in city parks be repaired, to save $200,000.

As World War I began, Edward Viscount Grey watched the lamplighters in London and lamented: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." Street lighting pales in comparison with a war and perhaps even a fiscal crisis. But some lights are going out all over New York, and while they may go on again, they are changing how people see the city meanwhile.